Re: [TCML] Is my 10" Tesla Coil Illegal ?

[Steve Ward <steve.ward@xxxxxxxxx>]

Are you aware of something called "conducted emissions"?

Im all for giving advice and ideas, but this advice seems rather un-sound
and purely guess work (any of my experience with RFI doesnt completely agree
with your "solution").  Im also not convinced you need the coil to arc to
the faraday cage for it to be effective.

>From the solid state systems i work with, the biggest producer of EMI is
when the coil arcs to something (grounded or just large).  This produces
bursts of 5-10MHz noise on my large system, comparable in size to Gary's 10"
coil.  I often use my laptop computer (powered from the same circuit, no
less) about 25 feet away from our twin system that produces up to 20 foot
discharges.  SS is obviously a lot less EMI, since i dont use anything in
particular for a line filter (though i really should).  Anyway, just wanted
to point out that all of our EMI related issues have always been from the
coils sparking to stuff, usually there are zero problems until that happens
(and usually its not a problem anyway).

A full faraday cage and careful line filtering would be the best ways of
chopping away at the EMI.  Line filtering is pretty trivial (mechanically)
and has the potential to help considerably.

Steve

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 1:40 AM, Christopher Karr <chriskarr4@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

>
> While it's likely that a Faraday cage would work, it would be expensive to
> build and a terrible inconvenience to have one in your own back yard, which
> you would want to eventually mow.
>
> A much more simple solution is to make sure that the spark gap, primary
> coil and secondary breakout are all shielded from RFI. The metho of doing
> this is taking the tank components and surrounding them with a conductive
> case or mesh, then earth-grounding said mesh. For the secondary, one would
> need a method of guaranteeing a 'power-arc' 100% of the time, which isn't
> very fun to see..
>
>  - Christopher
>
> > Subject: RE: [TCML] Is my 10" Tesla Coil Illegal ?
> > Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:07:39 -0800
> > From: Shannon.L.Weinhold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > Perhaps a large faraday cage is your solution.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: gary350@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gary350@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 9:57 AM
> > To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
> > Subject: [TCML] Is my 10" Tesla Coil Illegal ?
> >
> > This time of the year when the air is cold and the humidity is extremely
> > low static electricity is very high I get shocked every time I get IN or
> > OUT of my SUV, take off my jacket or put on my jacket.  If I move the
> > blankets in bed at night I see all kinds of sparks.  It is perfect for
> > firing up my Tesla Coil and getting some very long sparks.   But I worry
> > that this might be illegal.  My 10" TC makes 12 foot arcs I can make a
> > 27 ft circle of arcs and sparks in the back yard with the 3 ft top load.
> > It makes every motion detector light and every security alarm system go
> > off in a 4 block radius around my house.  After dark I can see motion
> > detectors lights going on/off, on/off, on/off, on/off, on/off, in all
> > directions as far as I can see.  My automatic garage door and all the
> > neighbors garage doors are freaked out going up/down, up/down, up/down,
> > up/down, up/down, up/down, over and over.  I can hear security alarms in
> > all directions.  I road my bicycle through the neighbor hood and I can
> > find alarm systems going off 4 blocks away in several directions from my
> > house.  It totally distroys TV and it makes no difference if you have
> > cable, satallite, or antenna TV is totally wiped out all reception for
> > several blocks.  I don't fire up my 10" TC very often anymore I worry it
> > might be illegal.
> >
> >
> >
> >
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